IBIS:  Mr. Ford, you have personally assisted dozens of customers with implementing the SAP Solution Manager system for more than just maintenance.  Why do you think customers should use Solution Manager?

Ford:  This is what I share with my customers:  if I was the CIO of their organization, before spending money on additional tools, I would implement what I already have.  And what I already have is Solution Manager.  If I can define my true footprint and build/maintain it using one tool, why wouldn't I do it?  The use of Solution Manager alone can reduce project timelines by as much as 70%...without the use of automated tools!  More and more customers are reducing staff, looking for ways to save money, and wanting greater visibility and accountability - which can all be achieved via the use of Solution Manager.

IBIS:  What are the primary objectives that customers have when choosing to implement Solution Manager?

Ford:  Customers are interested in reducing project implementation timelines, increasing the number of releases they have each year, improving the administration and control of their Transport (CTS) process via ChaRM, better managing their post go-live support desk, which is possible via Service Desk, and requirements traceability via the integration with HP Quality Center and SAP TAO.

IBIS:  What do you think are the Critical Success Factors when implementing Solution Manager?

Ford:  Everything starts with the Blueprint.  Customers can manually build it from scratch, manually build it from the Business Process Repository (BPR) or automatically build it with RBE Plus.  RBE Plus for Solution Manager will correctly populate a blueprint structure that represents the 'True' as-is analysis so teams can begin working on what's real...quickly.  RBE Plus analyzes all standard and custom transactions, configuration and development for a comprehensive Blueprint of business processes linked to the SAP BPR.  The Business Blueprint must be defined in order to use the Business Process Change Analyzer to identify testing requirements, enable Business Process Monitoring, have true requirement's traceability, and have visibility into every aspect of work being completed for a project.

IBIS:  Do you have any advice for customers to ensure a successful implementation?

Ford:  In order for Solution Manager to be a success, it must have support from the executive level of an organization.  I also highly recommend that a Change Control Board (CCB) be created that contains membership from Basis, ABAP, Project Management, Testing and IT Process teams.  The CCB team addresses all areas around the use, upgrade, and rollout of Solution Manager whether it  be for monitoring, upgrades, break/fix management via Maintenance Projects, ChaRM, Service Desk or others.  It's very important that the CCB team is in sync before rolling out to the whole SAP team.  I also encourage my customers to have both sandbox/development and production Solution Manager systems.  All support packs/upgrades should be implemented and validated in the development box prior to implementing in PRD.

IBIS:  Have your customers been satisfied with the results of implementing Solution Manager?

Ford:  Absolutely!  I've worked with multiple customers in the US and Canada who have implemented Solution Manager as a way of managing their business processes.  For implementation, maintenance or upgrade, Solution Manager is the tool of choice for my customers.  Using RBE Plus for Solution Manager to rapidly develop the Business Blueprint structure, customers are able to begin leveraging the ITIL functionality. And by exporting the Blueprint with associated project documentation to HP Quality Center, combined with integration with SAP TAO and using BPCA, customers can realize nearly 100% requirement's traceability for the testing effort along with significantly increasing accountability and visibility into what the teams are working on.